Mirror in the Sky
The Fata Morgana is a special type of mirage that is created when the sun heats up the atmosphere above a cold sea. In this case when warmer air rests over colder air an atmospheric duct may be created. The duct acts like a refracting lens, whereby as light rays enter the lens, they are refracted; and as they exit the lens, they are refracted again. Essentially, the duct bends the light rays and creates arcs. The net effect of the refraction at these two boundaries is that the light rays change direction. So, to an observer seeing a ship at the horizon it may then appear above inverted, seemingly floating upside down. Given the right atmospheric conditions the image may even be inverted again so that the inverted and normal images are stacked on top of one another.
Insprired by the legend and the Fata Morgana mirage I soon began work on my musical composition Mirror in the Sky. From the legend I reinterpreted the tidal ebb and flow of “the seven seas” to be the push and pull of harmonic tension. I chose to interpret “can never go home” to suggest harmonies that could be “bent” up and/or down to create slight movement but no goal. When a tonal center might be imminent its resolution was “evaporated.” In other words I hoped to create harmony that was tonal butnot functional. From the mirage I chose to interpret light rays to be melodies that would be "manipulated."
The work opens with long melodic “arcs” in the strings accompanied by calm, cool wind and brass harmonies. To contrast this form of communication I present short responses from the winds. As the work unfolds I pursue this call-and-response technique to promote a conversation. A conversation, of course, implies a back-and-forth exchange of thoughts and ideas. Sometimes it even changes the “point of view.” Reflecting this I change the call-and-response motives until one becomes the other. So the wind “response” fragments are soon extracted, dialogued, combined, extended, and stretched until they become the opening “arcs.” They are then overlayed with each other to become a swiftly moving accompaniment with no goal. Against this is presented a slower, longer “call” theme in the strings built out of the “response” fragments.
After the longer string themes are brought to a close I turn to my focus to the brass and percussion. Again I return to motivic shards from the “response” theme but now present the material as a fanfare. Soon after the fanfare concludes I recall a few of the wind and string fragments to conclude the exposition of the material.
The remainder of the work develops the ideas but, as one might guess, inverted. Along the way, however, I found myself “daydreaming” about other musics. Apparently the idea of bending light, especially through a prism, was at play. Similar to how a prism separates visible light into different colors I chose to separate music into different “styles.” These different “styles” are woven into the musical fabric, almost appearing as wisps of wind. At times I present simple homophony, imitation, a fantasy, a fanfare, jazz, blues, schmaltz, a samba, etc.
The work is brought to a close with a scherzo built on the fanfare theme inverted. After a playful introduction of motivic shards in the upper winds the scherzo theme first appears high, light and airy in the flutes, celesta and plucked violins. The theme then appears in the muted trumpets accompanied by the conga drums. The strings creep in and present the now emboldened scherzo theme once again. Soon the brass enter and present the theme a final time but inverted so it’s the original fanfare. After the fanfare subsides, I build a final insistent tutti out of several motivic shards which are subsequently “atomized.”
A brief coda resounds a theme fragment in the English Horn and, perhaps similar to a mirage disappearing, the wispy strings briefly reappear recalling the opening “arcs” and then are “vaporized.”